


Changes

by doomteacosy



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Episode: s05e03 Penguin Our Hero, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 03:44:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18296171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomteacosy/pseuds/doomteacosy
Summary: She couldn’t describe it if she wanted to, but everything feels somehow brighter and sharper.Not just literally, though she swears she can see the way the city moves in the dark in a way she never could before, but how she feels is different. The light feels brighter and the dark feels deeper and every thought, every emotion, is simmering closer to the surface than ever before. They flicker in and out faster, leaving her chasing after them in a daze. She’s elated, and she’s furious, and she’s... she’s...





	Changes

**Author's Note:**

> this was me just trying to make sense of where she was at. i started this after 5x02 aired and wrote most of it after 5x03, but then it lingered getting rewritten over and over. i'm putting my foot down now and kicking it out of the wip folder.
> 
> where’s her “i got shot and healed with a magic seed and all i got was slightly enhanced ptsd and this stupid t-shirt” shirt? how cool to have your meta powers be slightly worse impulse control, slightly worse emotional regulation, and slightly heightened violence....

She couldn’t describe it if she wanted to, but everything feels somehow brighter and sharper. 

Not just literally, though she swears she can see the way the city moves in the dark in a way she never could before, but how she _feels_ is different. The light feels brighter and the dark feels deeper and every thought, every emotion, is simmering closer to the surface than ever before. They flicker in and out faster, leaving her chasing after them in a daze. She’s elated, and she’s furious, and she’s... she’s...

(She’s sick with fear in a way she never has been before. It seeps in around the edges and between the cracks, and leaves her gasping for breath in the dead of night until she can bury it back under the feel of leather and metal, and the chill of Gotham's nights.)

She’s a million things, and they all spill back and forth over each other, blocking one another out in their brilliance. It’s like the world is back in color, loud and almost suffocating after too long in that bed, but she feels _powerful_ and she wants to hold onto that feeling.

(It's all somehow duller, too. Like she’s experiencing it through a screen. Her entire world on the other side of the glass, close enough to touch, but far enough away that it doesn’t quite feel real. But with each passing second it feels like it gets closer, and part of her still knows that good things don't last, even if she can't hear it yet. Eventually her world will slow down again, but as long as she's like this she doesn't have to think about it. And hasn't that always been her problem? Thinking, and thinking, and thinking, until she's buried herself so far under her doubts that she can't escape them.)

She feels like she’s more a walking contradictory than ever before. Like her insides finally match the constantly shifting patchwork that her surroundings have always been.

But she’s fine—she’s _fine_ —she’s _better_ than fine.

But she isn’t angry the way she would have been once. The way she wishes she could be. She thinks of Jeremiah and the usual quick snap and cry for vengeance that she’s always felt when she’s been wronged, that used to burn in her until she _did_ something about it, is somehow dull next to the queasy feeling that accompanies it. Is quiet next to the buzz along her nerves that turns deafening when she has a nightmare. She's sick of dreaming of him. Of dreaming of guns, and blood, and sweet things turned sinister, and waking to remember just standing there while he pulled the trigger, not even looking at her as he took her life away. Making her a footnote in someone else's story.

She wants revenge. To be able to sink down into her anger the way she used to, the way that feels like it should be effortless now, but it’s buried under something else, and more than anything she just wants it to _stop_. She wants the feel of the cool night air to be the comforting home it used to be, and not the temporary balm it’s become. She wants to feel like she has the tiniest ounce of control over her own life again. 

She just wants to be able to _breathe_. 

And when Bruce stands in front of her and insists they bring Jeremiah in, the thing in her that cries for blood—because she’d been wronged, because she needs something to make the nightmares stop and the world feel safe and whole—goes quiet. Eclipsed by something else, and she lets it. 

(Because she’s tired of all the thoughts that festered while she was trapped in that bed. Anger and fear all tangled together with everything else she feels about him. She doesn't want to be mad at him. Not for this, not at all. She’s tired of being mad. She’s tired of the things that have stretched the bond between them to its breaking point over and over again.)

She doesn't think about all the things that sit between them—sharp, hidden, bright, sweet, and everything in between—or all the things yet to come. She lets it slide through her fingers like so much sand, and focuses on this. On what needs to be done. On him looking down at her and the bright feeling that blooms in her even as she pushes at him.

She’s not _his_ to lose. She’s not a footnote in _his_ story, or a prop to be used against him, and there's nothing he can do to stop her. But there's _something_ there that won't go quiet, and Jeremiah and everything else disappear for a moment when he says it. Because she loves that he’s still the same solemn, stupid boy who’s equal parts too clever, and too good, and too naive for his own good. Even if she doesn’t always agree. Even if she can’t say it aloud. She loves him. 

She doesn’t have to think about it—not like she used to, hesitating on the edge of whatever they are because she knew that it would only hurt her. Because once it happened, all they could ever do was fall and break and never be the same. It’s a new world, and she’s a new person, and there’s nothing stopping her from reaching forward and touching him. Nothing stopping her from raising up on her toes and brushing her lips against his like she’s thought about a thousand times before.

She wants this, she wants this, she wants to let herself want this. 

And she knows, somehow, if she stops for just one second it will come crashing in on her. Because it always does. Because she can feel the world slowing down and the doubts creeping back in even as she smiles up at him. Because there are reasons she couldn't let herself want him before.

(Because she knew it was dangerous, and stupid, and impossible. She knew she couldn’t keep him. Because they were from two different worlds, because she couldn’t keep anything. Because one day he would find something more important, and she would be left behind. Because one day he would realize what she was—angry, and broken, and petty, and selfish—and never someone who could fit in his world of stark lines, and justice, and self sacrifice. Because one day he would break her heart.)

But right now she feels like she can almost breathe. Or at least being out of that bed, out of that room, feels close enough that she can pretend. And that's all she's ever had anyway.

After this, after Jeremiah, she can figure it out. 

Until then she wants to live in this moment, with Bruce gazing down at her thoughtfully and an end to her nightmares in sight. 


End file.
